Sunday, March 13, 2011

the logic of children

I have a pen that I absolutely love, a silver Cross pen.  It is beautiful and feminine, and I really enjoying writing with it.  I use it to make notes, plan school lessons, jot recipes, and so forth, but its most common function comes as I write in my daily planner.  I am one of those people who is completely lost without a detailed plan for my day. 

Natalie got a hold of my beloved pen last week.  Naturally, she lost it.  Every time I asked where my pen was, she would say, "Where it go?" and "Find it!"  She found part of it (yes, she took it apart).  But she could not remember where she had put the other half.  I had seen her with near the recliner in the living room, so I dug around in it and moved it to look underneath.  No luck.  I looked under the couch.  Nope.  After scouring the whole living room, I still had no clue where my pen was. 

I spent much of the week planning my days with a pen of Sarah's.  She was less than thrilled about this turn of events, and I couldn't claim to be crazy about it either.  I didn't want to be using her pen anymore than she wanted to lend it to me; I wanted my pen back.  But Natalie had no clue where she had stashed it.

I finally found the pen a couple of days ago--in a location so logical, it should have been the one of the first places I looked!  My planner has a back pocket for stashing receipts or notes or whatever.  I was digging out an old receipt that I'd stowed there and lo and behold, there was my pen.  Why on earth hadn't it occurred to me that Natalie would put the darn thing back with my planner?

I am reminded of a similar incident from when Sarah was about Natalie's age.  We lived in an apartment, and Sarah liked to help me taking clothing out of the dryer.  This particular dryer had the lint filter in the door, not up on top.  So when the dryer door was opened, the filter was well within Sarah's reach. 

Well, one day she took off with the lint filter and hid it.  We looked and looked, but could not find it anywhere.  Nelson finally went to a parts store and purchased a new filter; I had to be able to use the dryer.  Months later, as I was cleaning the not-so-new-anymore lint filter, I noticed something down in the now empty compartment.  I pulled it out and yep, you guessed it, it was the original lint filter.  It was mangled beyond words from being shoved down so far into the door, but it had been pretty much where it should have been all along. 

So the moral of the story is that if your child loses something, you'll probably find it "hiding in plain sight" in a perfectly reasonable, logical place. 

2 comments:

Tana said...

just yesterday i lent sean one of my new gel pens. he misplaced it in the car. he swore he gave it back to me, but i didn't have it. this morning, i pulled out my little spiral notebook that he'd been drawing in. there was my pen, all snug in the spiral. i apologized for accusing him of losing my pen. he apologized for forgetting that he'd put it in the notebook to hand back to me!

Tara said...

That's funny! It also reminds me of that time Sarah lost/hid your wedding ring. Remember that? :) I can't even recall where it ended up, only that no one could get her to say where she put it! :)